Contact copying apparatus

ABSTRACT

A contact copying apparatus having a rotatable copying cylinder and a feeding member for an original and a copying material, wherein the feeding member surrounds a portion of the periphery of the cylinder. The feeding member has a reversible feed direction, whereby the original can be passed to the copying cylinder from either of two sides. The apparatus also has an additional feeding member for the original which extends from the front to the rear side of the apparatus and cooperates with the reversible feeding member.

United States Patent [1 1 Kiihn 111 3,748,039 [451 July 24,1973

1 1 CONTACT COPYING APPARATUS [76] lnventor: Udo Kiihn, 29 Kirchgasse,

Wiesbaden, Germany [22] Filed: Apr. 16, 1971 [2 1] Appl. N0.: 134,593

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data Apr. 16, 1970 Germany P 20 18 224.5

[52] U.S. Cl. 355/1-06, 271/9, 355/97 [51] Int. Cl. G031) 27/30 [58] Field of Search 355/97, 104, 106,

[56]. References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,397,630 8/1968 Pratt 355/106 3,273,883 9/1966 Baronnie 3,547,538 12/1970 Yanagawa..... 3,257,925 6/1966 I Ashburner 3,211,451 10/1965 Masterson 355/106 X 3,416,863 12/1968 Ralston 355/106 X FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 943,401 12/1963 Great Britain 355/106 1,184,214 12/1964 Germany 355/104 377,648 6/1964 Switzerland 355/106 Primary Examiner-Fred L. Bratin Attorney-James E. Bryan [57] ABSTRACT A contact copying apparatus having a rotatable copying cylinder and a feeding member for an original and a copying material, wherein the feeding member surrounds a portion of the periphery of the cylinder. The

feeding member has a reversible feed direction,"

whereby the original can be passed to the copyingcylinder from either of two sides. The apparatus also has an additional feeding member for the original which extends from the front to the rear side of the apparatus and cooperates with the reversible feeding member.

10 Claims, 2 Drawing Figures CONTACT COPYING APPARATUS This invention relates to a contact apparatus with a rotating copying cylinder and at least one feeding means for the original and the copying material, which means surrounds part of the periphery of the cylinder.

. section and then collected as a finished-copy in a container.

The unexposed copying material is taken either manually or automatically from a supply and fed, together with the original, into the exposure section of the apparatus. For copying originals of dimensions other than standard or of particularly large dimensions, the copying material generally i's'not fed as a sheet but from a supply roll and cut in correspondence with the length of the-original. ln'order to satisfy all practical requirements, it thuswould be necessary to store the copying material in the form of sheets of different standard sizes as well as in the form of rolls of different widths in a suitable part .of the copyingapparatus. Becasue of lack of space, this requirement never .can be met completely. Thephotoprintingapparatuses used-in practice thus normally operate either with one or several sheet stacks or with a supply roll. Also, an apparatus is known'that can operate with several sipply rolls.

Suchproblemsm'f course,primarily apply to appara- 'tuses with automatic feeding of't'he copying material.-

But alsoin the case-of apparatuses with manual feeding of the copying material, the supply at the operators side generally is limited to a few sheet sizes or to one supply roll. 1 v, r

' When an original of a .size other than that of the copying material must be copied in such a copying apparatus, it is possible either to employ the next larger size of copying material, which means a'waste of material or to dispensewith automatic feeding by taking the appropriate size froma separate supply and introducirig-it-manually I v r i The present invention provides a preferably automatically operating high-speed contact copying apparatus which permits the production of single copies or a pluralityof copies oforiginals of very different sizes, with particularly, safeand' gentle feed of the original as well as the use of a simply constructed copying cylinder;

The novel contact copying'apparatus has a rotating copying cylinder and at least one feeding means for the 'original and the copying material, the feeding means surrounding'part of the periphery of the cylinder. The feed direction of the feeding means is reversible and "the original, therefore, can be conveyed or passed to ably, it consists ofa known endless conveyor belt or a number of parallel endless conveyor belts. A preferred embodiment of the apparatus has, at

least on one feeding side, devices for automatic feeding of copying materials of'different sizes.

This apparatus may be so constructed that, from one side, the copying material is fed in the form of sheets of at least one size and, from the other side, it is fed from at least one supply and cut.

In another preferred embodiment of the copying apparatus of the invention, the device for automatic feeding of the copying material is arranged at the rear side of the apparatus and an additional feeding means, preferably an air-permeable conveyor belt system, is provided for the original, when feeding means extends from the front to the rear side of the apparatus where it contacts the feeding means for the original and the copying material; The feed direction and feedspeed .of the additional feeding means are attuned to thoseof the feeding means for the originaland the copying'material.

The copying apparatus of the invention advantageously also maybe constructed as a step-and-repeat copying apparatus in that the additional feeding means is so constructed thatit additionally contacts the feeding means for the original and the copying material at a point between the copying cylinder and the frontof the apparatus and that means for separating the original and the copyingmaterial are provided behind both contact points.

Thecopying apparatus of the invention permits considerable automationand simpler operation,'which has been impossiblewith .the hitherto known copying apparatuses. It permits wide variation in thesizeof the copies so that it is possible to make copies of originals of practically all standard sizes without the copy-ing material having to be manually selected or-cut.

Furthe'r simplification of operation of the apparatus of the invention provides an embodiment in whichithe copying procedure is automatically controlled by -perforated order cards. The-order cards may contain, e.g.,

the number of copies, if required or desired,the kind sible with the apparatusof the invention,.the collecting trough may be' so dimensioned to collect also large originals without damagingthem. in this case, the operator may introduce the originals successively withiri'a short time so that the operating speed issubstantially increased. The selection of the direction of ejection" is independent of the feed direction of the feeding means.

The feeding means with reversible feeddirection :in

accordance with the invention preferably is either a single endlessperforated belt or a number of parallel endless perforated belts. The feed of the copying material and of the original through the exposure'station is carried out in this case in that the conveying belt system is hermetically closed :at the front ends and air is drawn from the interior'through the perforations or through the slits between the strip-like belts. When using striplike belts, it is advantageous to tighten each smip individually in a suitable manner in order to compensate for different elongation during operation.

The apparatus of the invention either may be fed from two sides or, when the copying material is fed automatically at least on one side, the apparatus may be preferably operated always from one side by means of the additional feeding means for the original. In this case, the original is either fed together with the copying material from the operators side to the copying cylinder or is placed on the same side onto the additional feeding means for the original, conveyed therefrom to the rear side of the apparatus, united there with the automatically fed copying material and passed to the feeding means for the original and the copying material, which conveys both sheets from the rear side through the copying zone.

When the additional feeding means also is an internally evacuated conveying belt system, it may serve to separate the original introduced from the front from the copying material after expsoure and to eject it either towards the front or towards the rear side of the apparatus.

As indicated above, the additional conveyor belt system may be arranged substantially symmetrically with respect to the copying cylinder and in contact with the first conveyor belt system in front of and behind the copying cylinder. In this case, the original may be separated from'the copying material after passing the copying cylinder by appropriate control of the suction and optionally, by returned via the conveyor belt system to the initial position and copied again or ejected towards the front or rear side.

This procedure of returning the original via the additional conveyor belt has the particular advantage that, in this case, originals up to a length of about 1 m and more may be automatically repeated. In the hitherto known step-and-repeat copying apparatuses, the original has been returned to the exposure station by holding or sucking upon the copying cylinder, the length of the original, of course, being limited by the diameter of the copying cylinder.

.In accordance with the present invention, it is now even possible to construct the copying cylinder substantially smaller than it has been usual hitherto, preferably with a diameter below cm. Copying cylinders of this size can be manufactured substantially more inexpensively than the hitherto conventional ones of a diameter of about 10 to cm. When using a highpower light source, e.g., a high-pressure mercury vapor lamp which requires intensive cooling, this cooling advantageously is performed by blowing air onto the cylinder from the outside.

The copying cylinders of conventional photoprinting machines are cooled from the interior by means of an air stream. In order to prevent the cooling air from impairing the efficiency of the light source, the lamp is in an additional enveloping tube, usually of quartz. This enveloping tube may be omitted when the copying cylinder is cooled from the outside.

External cooling has the further advantage that the inner side of the cylinder is not contaminated by dust particles entrained by the cooling air. By omitting the enveloping tube, the intensity of illumination of the copying material is increased. Another considerable increase of the intensity of illumination is achieved by using a smaller copying cylinder.

When a smaller original must be repeated, the length of which is only part of the circulation path of the additional conveyor belt system, it is possible, for adjusting a shorter circulation time, to adjust an increased travel speed which becomes effective when the end of the original has left the copying cylinder and until the leading edge reaches it for repeated exposure.

The apparatus part above the copying cylinder advantageously is so constructed that it is tiltable at one side so that it may be tilted upwardly. In this manner, the copying cylinder is easily accessible in the case of malfunction or for cleaning.

When the copying apparatus of the invention, in addition to the described exposure section, contains a development section for the exposed copying material, this section advantageously is arranged beneath the exposure section so that the upper part thereof can be opened in the described manner. I

In the case of photoprinting apparatus, development is carried out in the usual manner either with an alkaline developer solution or with wet ammonia. Development advantageously may be carried out according to the principle described in U. S. Pat. No. 3,440,944, according to which the ammonia gas is blown onto the surface to be developed and drawn through the conveying surface, which advantageously again is a perforated conveyor belt. 24

Exemplary embodiments of the contact copying apparatus are illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2.

FIG. 1 is a view in longitudinal section through a preferred embodiment of a contact copying apparatus in accordance with the present inventing and FIG. 2 is a view in longitudinal section through a simplified embodiment of the contact copying apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 1 shows a combined photoprinting apparatus with an exposure section and adevelopment section. On the operating table 10, there is the copying material sheet 11 and thereabove the original to be copied 12. Both sheets are placed between the conveyor belts l3 and 14 circulating around the rollers 18 to 23 and 24 to 31, respectively. The sheets are gripped at the contact point 15. They are conveyed along the exposure cylinder 16 in the center of which is the light source 17,

e.g., a high-pressure mercury vapor lamp. The exposure cylinder 16 is cooled by blowing air thereon from the slot 44. The exposure time is regulated by adjusting the feed speed. After passing the exposure station, the original 12 and the copying material 11 are separated at the separation point 32.

The endless, preferably perforated conveyor belts 13 and 14 may be of one piece or of a number of parallel strips. At the front ends, the column-shaped space surrounded by each conveyor belt is enclosed by walls so that this space is connected with the ambient air only by the perforations or the slits between the strips. Suction lines are introduced into the front ends through which lines the air is drawn off from the interior. In this manner, the copying material 1 l and the original 12 are firmly sucked onto the corresponding conveyor belts l3 and 14, respectively. The drawing diagrammatically illustrates the zones in which the conveyor belts are under suction by the hatched surfaces 33, 34, 35, and 36. In addition to the suction zones, the baffles 37, 38, and 39 are provided for feeding the original and/or the copying material.

39, it is then fed onto the conveyor belt 49, which may be constructed in the same manner as the belts 1-3 and 14. The conveyor belt 49 which travels over the rolls 50, 51, and 52 conveys the copying material through the development section 48. In the present case, development is performed with heated wet ammonia gas which advantageously is blown onto the surface of the copying material and drawn through the perforated conveying belt. After leaving the development zone, the developed'copy is separated fromthe conveyor belt 49 and guided into the collectingtrough 54 by means of the baffle 53. v

The supply of copying material is in the form of a roll 42 and of one or more sheet stacks 43 beneath the opcrating table 10. When introducing the original 12, and

in dependence upon the size thereof, the copying material is drawn either manually from the roll 42 and cut to the appropriate length or fed by an automatic feeding device, not shown, and fed together with and exactly beneath the original of the same dimensions.

"Thecopying apparatus may be fed from the table 41. In this case, the feed direction of the'three conveyor beltsyl3, l4 and 49 is-reversed so that the belts 13 and 49 circulatecounterclockwise and the belt 14 clockwise-The original is then-gripped by the belt 14, conthe copying material correspondingly to the length of theoriginal. The originaland the copying material then pass the copying cylinderin the reversed direction and ai'eseparatedat 15. The orignal either may be ejected onto the table'47, orafter-turnng'up the baffle 37, into the trough 40. When the-copy is to be repeated, the original remains on theconveyor belt 14 and .is' again united @132 with a sheet of copying material. 1

When making several'copies from an original, it is also possible to actuate the switches 59 and 59a arranged at a short distance in front of and behind the exposure zone.'These switches control the circulation speed of the belts l3 and 14. When a relatively short original is to be copied, two circulation speeds are preselected: the-highest possible circulation speed and the speed necessary for a proper exposure time. The original and the sheet of copying material enter the copying apparatus at the highest possible speed until their leading: edges pass the switch 59. The exposure speed is switched on and maintained until the rear edges of the original and the copying material have passed the switch 590. The'apparatus also may be so operated, of

. co'urseythat the highest possible speed is switched on forthe first time when the first exposure has taken place andbecomes effective each time during the return of the original to-the exposure station.

a conveyor belt 13 and removed in the zone of the baffle '39 by interrupting the suction. By means of the baffle The exposed copying material is passed from the conveyor belt 13 in the zone 'of the rolls l8 and 52 to the conveyor belt 49 and conveyed thereby through the development section 48. Development of the copy takes place as described above. By means of the adjustable baffle 5 5, the copy optionally may be ejected into one of the troughs 54 and'56.

The supply of copying material at the rear side of the apparatus advantageously is composed of other sizes,

e.g., the roll 45 with another width and/or at least one stack of another sheet size, than those mounted'lbelow the table 10. i H

When an exposed sheet of copying material is to be developed only or when development is to be repeated, the sheet may be introduced manually through the gap 57.

The upper part of the copying' apparatus containing the conveyor belt 14 is pivotal about the axis 58 so that the copying cylinder 16 is accessible by simply turning up this part. FIG. 2 shows a simplified embodiment of the photoprinting apparatus of the invention which is operated from two sides. On the operating table 60, there are the copying material 61 taken fom the supply roll71 and the original 62. They are placed manually into the exposure section, superimposed, and conveyed by the conveyor belt '63 along-the exposure cylinder 68, in the center of which is'the light source 69. The light source may be a high-pressure mercury vapor lamp or a one or more fluorescent-lamps'When using several fluorescent lamps as ,thelight source, the exposurezcylinder may have a larger diameter, i.e.,-above l.0'cm. -For I producing a good contact *with the conveyor belt 63 and, if desired, for separating the original from the copying material after exposure, a number of contact rolls are provided which are represented by the'rolls 6 4 to 67. The original 62 and the copying material6l are separatedfrom one another in a suitable manner after conducts it through thedevelopment zone- 76. The'finished. copy is then passed into one of the collecting troughs'78 and79 by means of the'adjustable baffle 77. This working methodof jthe'apparatus may serve for the production of copies of large 'originalswhere manual introduction ofthecopyingmate'rial is necessary or advantageous duefto-the length of theoriginal.

When copies of smaller originals, particularly those of standardsizes, are to be produced, the directionfof rotation of the conveyor belt 63 is-reversed so that it circulates counterclockwise. The original is then introduced via the table under which there are stacks of sheets of copying material of different standard sizes7 2 and 73. When introducing the originaL'the appropriate size of copying. material is selected and the sheet is placed onto the belt63 by suitable'known synchronization measures so that it is exactly beneath the original. The copying operation proceedsanalogoulsy in the di rectionopposite t'o'the direction above. The exposed copying material is passed from the conveyor belt 63 in thezone of the baffle to the conveyor belt 74, the direction of rotation-of which is not changed. Development and ejection-take place asdesc'ribed above.

The upper part of the apparatus ispivotal about t'he axis so that the copying cylinder is easily accessible;

It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that many modifications may be made within the scope of the present invention without departing from the spirit thereof, and the invention includes all such modifications.

What is claimed is:

1. ln a contact copying apparatus having front and rear sides, a rotatable copying cylinder and a feeding means for an original and a copying material, said means surrounding a portion of the periphery of the cylinder, the improvement which comprises feeding means having a reversible feed direction whereby the original can be passed to the copying cylinder from either the front or the rear side of the apparatus, and automatic feeding means mounted at the rear side of the apparatus for automatically feeding copying materials of different sizes, said automatic feeding means including additional fedding means for the original, the additinal feeding means extending from the front to the rear side of the apparatus where it contacts the feeding means for the original and the copying material.

2. An apparatus according to claim 1 in which the reversible feeding means comprises a conveyor belt.

3. An apparatus according to claim 2 in which the conveyor belt is a plurality of parallel belts.

4. An apparatus according to claim 1 in which the additional and reversible feeding means each comprises a perforated belt and the apparatus includes means for exhausting air from a space surrounded by said belts.

5. An apparatus according to claim 1 in which the additional reversible feeding means contacts the feeding means for the original and the copying material additionally at a point between the copying cylinder and the front of the apparatus, and including means for separating the original and the copying material behind both contact points.

6. An apparatus according to claim in which the additional feeding means is a perforated conveyor belt system includng means for exhausting air from the surrounding space.

7. An apparatus according to claim 1 including means adjacent to the automatic feeding means for cutting copying material drawn from a one supply roll.

8. An apparatus according to claim 1 in which the copying cylinder has a diameter less than 10 cm.

9. An apparatus according to claim 1 in which part of the apparatus above the copying cylinder is pivotal.

10. An apparatus according to claim 1 including mans for blowing air onto the exteriorof the copying 

1. In a contact copying apparatus having front and rear sides, a rotatable copying cylinder and a feeding means for an original and a copying material, said means surrounding a portion of the periphery of the cylinder, the improvement which comprises feeding means having a reversible feed direction whereby the original can be passed to the copying cylinder from either the front or the rear side of the apparatus, and automatic feeding means mounted at the rear side of the apparatus for automatically feeding copying materials of different sizes, said automatic feeding means including additional fedding means for the original, the additinal feeding means extending from the front to the rear side of the apparatus where it contacts the feeding means for the original and the copying material.
 2. An apparatus according to claim 1 in which the reversible feeding means comprises a conveyor belt.
 3. An apparatus according to claim 2 in which the conveyor belt is a plurality of parallel belts.
 4. An apparatus according to claim 1 in which the additional and reversible feeding means each comprises a perforated belt and the apparatus includes means for exhausting air from a space surrounded by said belts.
 5. An apparatus according to claim 1 in which the additional reversible feeding means contacts the feeding means for the original and the copying material additionally at a point between the copying cylinder and the front of the apparatus, and including means for separating the original and the copying material behind both contact points.
 6. An apparatus according to claim 5 in which the additional feeding means is a perforated conveyor belt system includng means for exhausting air from the surrounding space.
 7. An apparatus according to claim 1 including means adjacent to the automatic feeding means for cutting copying material drawn from a one supply roll.
 8. An apparatus according to claim 1 in which the copying cylinder has a diameter less than 10 cm.
 9. An apparatus according to claim 1 in which part of the apparatus above the copying cylinder is pivotal.
 10. An apparatus according to claim 1 including mans for blowing air onto the exterior of the copying cylinder. 